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[DnD 5e/Next Discussion] Turns out Liches are a problem after all.
wildwood
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Four editions is not enough. Get in on the playtesting here: https://wizards.com/DnD/DnDNext.aspx
Not to be confused with discussion of D&D 4e, or general RPG discusison.
This thread is proud host of the monster BadWrongFun:
And now a few words about "Iconic".
Iconic is all those warm feelings that you had when you first played D&D, which may or may not have been connected to puberty and adolescent power fantasies. Iconic is why 4e sucks so bad, with all its stupid balance and playability. Iconic is save-or-die effects, wizards-rule-fighters-drool, and skill checks in three different skills to adequately search a room. Iconic is wiping out a party with a room full of kobolds, and somehow making it the players' fault.
In short, Iconic is the new Fun. Why do you hate Iconic?
Too true, @Mikey CTS. Too true.
Do you want to get in on the Iconic(tm) action? It's easy! Just use one of these graphics when you post! Be sure to select the right size to match the depth of your commitment to Iconic.
And be sure to thank @Kalnaur when you do, for his dazzling mastery of font, line, and blinking colors!
Commence bitching!
Not to be confused with discussion of D&D 4e, or general RPG discusison.
This thread is proud host of the monster BadWrongFun:
Badwrongfun - Guardian of Fun6HD (25hp), AC 14, Att: Glare (Special)
If Badwrongfun sees you having fun in the wrong way, you're in trouble. His Glare will target the ringleader of the fun. Save vs Death or Die.
Any players that express dissatisfaction with the Glare attack will find themselves immediately targeted with the next Glare.
And now a few words about "Iconic".
Iconic is all those warm feelings that you had when you first played D&D, which may or may not have been connected to puberty and adolescent power fantasies. Iconic is why 4e sucks so bad, with all its stupid balance and playability. Iconic is save-or-die effects, wizards-rule-fighters-drool, and skill checks in three different skills to adequately search a room. Iconic is wiping out a party with a room full of kobolds, and somehow making it the players' fault.
In short, Iconic is the new Fun. Why do you hate Iconic?
Iconic was a buzzword WotC threw around a lot when they started hinting at the playtest. There was a lot of talk about breaking the game down to its most iconic elements. It's just a codeword meant to tell grognards this version of the game is for them. It was blantant pandering to try to win back that audience.
We had an animated gif of the word at some point but I'm too lazy to hunt it down.
Too true, @Mikey CTS. Too true.
Do you want to get in on the Iconic(tm) action? It's easy! Just use one of these graphics when you post! Be sure to select the right size to match the depth of your commitment to Iconic.
And be sure to thank @Kalnaur when you do, for his dazzling mastery of font, line, and blinking colors!
Commence bitching!
wildwood on
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This discussion has been closed.
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This Just In
A new skill has been put into place, though few can dream of using it. Use Thighs allows you to stun the masses with your divine lower-body musculature. It's not an easy skill to master, though - the easy DC starts at 30.
Bane, of course, has Use Thighs 40. If "dreamy" was a skill, he'd have that too.
basically we were bitching about the whole "mapless" thing. some people like it, others don't.
i don't.
i'm a visual and tactile guy.
if you tell me the room is 10x10 meter room with 4 orcs in it, i'll take it at face value. if a chest high wall, a chandelier and a pit suddenly appear out of nowhere for the rogue to jump off, swing on and kick the orc down into, i'll probably "WTF?!"
maybe not out loud but it'll kill my immersion a bit because i'm thinking "how the hell did i miss those things?"
maps, minis and a host of other visuals oil up all my brain cogs so they can work in high gear as i simply have more information to work with.
different strokes and whatnot, but mapless is a big turnoff for me.
If I have a player ask a question about the nature of something on the map, I'll probably adjust it to allow for maximum awesomeness, but if I'm planning on cutting off an advance by flipping the table mentioned in the scene description only to have the guy who goes before me decide that there are casks of ale on it mid-action, I'm gonna be unhappy.
Mapless games always seem to devolve into one or more players pleading/arguing for special dispensation after the fact when they made a decision several minutes ago based on something that didn't actually exist the way they thought it did from the description.
Screw that. Just draw it out and have it done with.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
In both examples, I'll draw in a room with a fancy bed, a dresser, and some curtained windows, and say "it's the Royal Bedroom." Those are your big elements, and the PCs can't change or add any fundamental things (so, like you guys were saying, there's not suddenly a pit in the room, or big cask of ale on a table, because fuck you you totally would've seen that if it was in there). But beyond that, the room description is blank, so if during a swordfight, a player wants to ask "so these windows, is there a balcony outside, or can I kick this guy straight out?" Well, then it's whatever's better for the story at hand. Or, if a player wants to ask "so this is the bed in a royal bedroom--probably pretty fancy, right? Does it have those mini curtains I can tangle a guy up in?", it's a minor detail tied to the general room description, so, sure.
I think ASKING helps a lot as well. You can always say "no" after all.
I keep waffling on buying a wet-erase grid from Chessex.
also: now i know there was another release on the 14th that added the gnome and half-orc and changed the rules a little bit
But overall, it was darn uninspiring. And almost completely uninformative as to exactly why I should buy the new system when I can bust out my black books and play that same scenario almost identically, word for word.
Also, lol at Mearls throwing out partial successes on the Con check and the like. That's not D&D (unless your DM is smart enough to chuck the parts of the books he doesn't like).
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yes, bad. It makes for a less functional game. No, there's no badwrongfun, it's still possible to enjoy it, you're not a bad person for liking it, etc etc, but at least in a game that functions like D&D does, this is bad for the game.
This is mostly because D&D, at its core, is terrible at ad-lib gameplay. At best you get a few tables of estimated DC-by-level/difficulty values and damage-by-level values, and that's pretty much it.
I think this is easiest to explain with an example, so I'm going to roll with the most recent one offered before the authoring of this post (I am not intending to single out this poster or example in particular). Here's the problem with this approach:
What does it mean for a player to tangle up an opponent in a bed's mini curtains?
This is not a simple question with an easy answer. The answer must address all of the following:
* Which rules vehicle is most appropriate for handling this scenario? (in 4E terms: terrain power, opposed skill check, custom rules like attack/defense mods, etc)
* What action is required to tangle up opponents in the curtains? (in terms of specific mechanics)
* What other prerequisites (relative positioning, character abilities, power use, character sizes, etc) exist?
* What is the consequence of success when this action is attempted? (numeric outcomes, conditions, etc)
* What is the consequence of failure when this action is attempted? (numeric outcomes, conditions, etc)
* Will this solution be ported to all similar circumstances, including, but not limited to: full-size window curtains, tapestries (attached or loosened with an attack on one side), an ally holding a large cloak in waiting, a mass of vines?
In order to not bog the game down, the DM must provide all these answers immediately. In order for the game to function properly, the answers must be pulled from a set of correct answers (there is no one answer to this problem, but there is an arbitrarily large number of wrong answers).
If the action is too hard to perform and/or succeed at, then the player is punished for coming up with the idea. If the action gives too much of an advantage, the player is excessively rewarded for the concept (and the game can then be busted as players attempt to perform this sort of activity at all times). If the action only works in this one circumstance, but is totally different the next time (like with window curtains or a tapestry), then the game becomes disjointed and unpredictable.
Furthermore, because so much of the answer is invented at play-time, it becomes impossible for a player to understand the strategy of the game. What's the best action to take on any given turn? It depends, not only on provided information (like character positioning, available powers, relative HP, and the like -- these are good) but also on information that doesn't even exist yet. What's the strategic value of kicking a vase over in front of an advancing foe? How about grabbing the blanket from the bed and tossing that at them? What about performing a bull rush with the intent to shove a foe into a metal sconce bolted onto a stone wall? What if it were a wooden sconce?
Until you exhaustively ask about each and every possibility you can imagine and evaluate the mechanical worth of each, you can't know which is the best action to take.
Well, maybe you don't care. Maybe you just want to do something that's awesome. Maybe it's all about the story that's told.
In this case you simply avoid the mechanics entirely. Want to tie an enemy up in the mini curtains? Roll to hit. If you succeed, the HP loss is a representation of the defensive disadvantage the target suffered as a result. No mechanical difference, but the story is told as desired.
But what if you want to encourage creativity and situational problem-solving with actual mechanics? Well, you need to make sure the game is built to support it from the beginning. Interesting and wonderful things happen when you give players a big selection of tools to work with and let their imaginations run wild. But if you let them make up their tools on the spot, and you're supposed to immediately determine how those tools work? This isn't problem solving any more. It's storytelling, sure, but it has nothing to do with the gameplay.
The tools must be known, functional, and discrete. If a player wants to use a terrain element to their advantage, this should either be explicitly enunciated in the scenario description (and provided as a known option), or it should be provided as a rules construct that a player can utilize with a known cost and benefit.
An example of how you might do this is to give everyone a set of "terrain points" (TP) per day where their character can utilize something cool in their surroundings to get an edge in battle. In order to use a TP, one of the following must be true: either the character is standing in a tile that offers terrain advantage, or the target is standing in a tile that offers terrain disadvantage. A player can use a TP to gain combat advantage to the attack, reuse an expended encounter power, or use an available encounter power without expending it.
An example of how not to do this is with Next's Advantage / Disadvantage system. In this system, there are a few discrete options for acquiring Advantage or forcing Disadvantage onto a foe, but there is also the ad-lib component where the player can invent activities and scenarios to attempt to confer these statuses. For example, a player might request to use the bed's mini-curtains to impose Disadvantage on a foe if the player's attack lands. This is bad, because the game doesn't provide information about whether or not this works. It's up to the DM. Some DMs will allow this. Others will not allow this. Therefore, the game becomes more of a theme of learning what sorts of things your DM will say "yes" to and coming up with sufficient BS to create this result. This is disparagingly referred to as "DM-May-I" gameplay, and it is the worst.
I think this is the first L&L where my only response is "Sounds good."
I actually really like the concept of "border elemental planes".
WHAT HAVE I BECOME?
Well... traditional Norse mythology had Niflheim (ice) to the north and Muspelheim (fire) to the south...
so you may be a viking.
...I'm okay with this.
I like how the idea lends itself to these elemental planes could be haphazardly accessible from the prime. Get lost in the desert and can't find your way out? Yeah, you actually crossed planes....
Stuff like Shangrila, the Bermuda Triangle, all sorts of fun ideas this lends itself well to.
...
what? i'm not above the occasional cheap cop-out as long as i can disguise it well 'nuff.
Oh hey, not talking about mechanics!
Go figure.
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At pax east every time we did next, it was mapless, and awful. Every room was "you're in another cave" and we end up guestimating every situation and having to ask "are we close enough to X or far enough away to do Y? instead of a 20 second map giving us alot of information for tactics and planning.
Of course, something large like a chandelier (or other piece of furniture) will usually be in my description. But whether it's the kind you can cut the support line from the floor or you need to aim at the ceiling, whether the lights are built-in or are torches that can be lifted from their sconces, those are the sorts of details I leave up to players asking about.
With less concrete information (tactical rules, visual aids, etc.) you can't plan ahead.
It is all about waiting for your turn and then asking 20 questions to the DM.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It's like there are more efficient methods of communication than verbal!
All that stuff is probably going to be written out or at least bouncing around in my head before dice even hit the table.
Yeah, I think I'm neurotic.
If you can't answer those kinds of things on the fly then you're on rails through the pre-answered stuff.
And if you can, then the answers aren't needed ahead of time, so why do that work for what might be never needed?
Or it could just be you have way more time devoted to your prep than I ever could.
I mean.. okay, yeah, having a door open in/out could be important in certain situations. But knowing the style of hinges?
Kudos for creating a realistic world where you can call out Sierra-levels of description and not tip off what's important in the room, though; that's a skill I suck at, I always tend to throw Chekhov's Gun in there way too obviously.
As with all things, when it comes to making up terrain on the fly I tend to go with whatever allows for the most PC awesomeness.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
On the one hand, that level of detail can be important, and there's nothing inherently wrong with going through Kal's kind of exhaustive checklist before hand. In cases where that stuff matters, it's not a bad idea to have those questions answered ahead of time. On the other hand, I find it more helpful to be a bit more flexible--the aim of the activity, I've always thought, was for everyone at the table to have fun. Fun doesn't always mean "I win," anymore than it should mean overcoming soul-crushing adversity at every turn.
Having a ready-made answer for questions that might pop up is important in that it can help keep things moving, and improve the flow of the game. I think it's just as important to be ready to change those answers on occasion. Whether it's to provide additional challenge for something the players are steamrolling or cut them some slack when the dice have been crushing their fun, being willing to abandon your checklist and do a little improv can do wonders for your evening.
To steer this back toward the Next topic of the thread, some of my trepidation is due to the amount of work it's going to take on my part to make the game work - especially with different groups preferring different rule modules. I usually only have a couple hours right before playing to make preparations, and Next doesn't seem suited to that playstyle - at least not as well as previous editions, in my experience.
My players are always charging things. Always rolling death saves too.
They have finally started talking on Facebook about the possible connection between these two things.
i pick my games like i pick tools: the right tool for the right job and the right game for the right genre. a multi-tool is useless for anything but general use. the second you realize that you need something a bit more specialized it starts becoming more of a burden, the extra bits add on useless weight or bulk and the parts you DO want aren't the right size or fit.
if this is the future of D&D next:
count me out.
i'm happy with my wrench kit, screwdriver kit and various types of hammers and blades. i don't need to struggle with the ungainly biggest swiss army knife with those nearby. it might take up more space on the shelf of the side room in the house, but all in all, it's far more convenient to actually use when i just need to grab those little specialized bits.
those tools do their job VERY well.
what i need to know with D&D next is, am i getting a swiss army knife that supposedly does EVERY job, or a wrench kit? because i already have a generalist's tool: GURPS. from the designs i'm seeing, i doubt 5th ed can be a better GURPS then GURPS. so then i ask, how does it stand up against the other, more specialized games i own?
my last bit for description:
i'll give you an anecdote: this happened years ago, where a friend of mine was running a campaign called the city of brass; i believe it was a module but i could be wrong.
we had made our way to a rather large and lavish room. the whole thing was ornate as fuck with marble, gold, silk, etc... everywhere. he just kept going about the description of the room. then, when he takes the obvious breather to let it sink in, we start poking around until someone goes "i'mma sit on that throne"
to which he replied "the efreet wasn't too happy you guys ignored him and poked around the room but sitting on his lap..."
to which we all did a spit take.
and then it hit him (my buddy, the GM): he forgot to actually tell us there was a big, imposing efreet sitting on the throne.
i'm pretty bad at describing things myself when put on the spot since english is my second language. while i can sit down and write with a bit more prose, my spoken english tends to be a bit more curt. when writing an adventure and put things in the "this bullshit should be told to the players" i normally reread and rewrite it so it's very clear. most rooms are simply quick overhead shots with shapes and the word "table" "chair" and a few shorthand glyphs like a S to indicate a secret door or a big X to mark a trap, often with some sort of annotation. hell, these posts are normally reread and edited a few times for clarity.
if the party is in a big castle, then yes, they can probably guess that the floor is made of the same worked stone as the last room and the windows with actual glass. i don't need to repeat these details. i do, however, feel the need to tell them the general furnishings of the room, pointing out the more obvious differences "this floor is unusually clean for a dungeon pit." or "the ceiling of this cave is badly supported and could probably collapse at any time"
i don't need to know that the window is made of stained glass with an image of the former king, i just need to know that there is a window there. i don't need to know that the table is made of local lumber, which is known in the region as some of the finest lumber to burn if you're looking to make potash and has lead to a boom in the local soap business and lumber... all i need to know is "where is this table and can i suplex the bugbear through it?".
tell me the information needed to make an informed decision on what to do next. if something is obviously important to the plot, point it out before letting the PCs run wild.
Well, I'm not sure I'd compare Next to GURPS - I would compare Next to Savage Worlds. At least, how I see things, Savage Worlds seems to accomplish nearly everything that Next has been trying to do (with the exception of trying to be
Edit: Well, maybe not.
I've reached a point in my development as a gamer where I literally have bookshelves full of dedicated systems, and a few generalist systems that I'm comfortable enough with to run just about anything not covered by something specific. If I'm going to be convinced to buy a game, it needs to be something interesting or relevant to me, or do something that one of the games I already have doesn't do. (Or cost $9 like the Savage Worlds book I bought last week.)
I don't see any of that in Next. When I said that they playtest video "sounded like D&D", that didn't mean I was convinced to buy it. I already have two editions of D&D that I love for very different reasons (one being very, very thick rose colored glasses), so just making something new that lets me play D&D isn't going to get the job done. And making a generalist high magic dark ages/renaissance simulator isn't going to it either.
Next has produced nothing to this point that would compel me to pay money for it. And that makes me sad, because I love D&D as a past time and not supporting it probably means that I am in some small way contributing to the end of the brand, at least in the near term. But better options exist now, or at least equivalent options that I already possess. So my time buying everything with Dungeons and Dragons on the cover is over unless this thing seriously turns around.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
But otherwise I agree, as a new player, short descriptions that get things going are nice. If I want more detail, I can ask. If I don't, maybe my character is quite tunnel focused on their mission at hand, I can bypass it.